Early start, long walks, Stanford campus, Optimus robot surprise, and Silicon Valley history — my weekend adventure from Santa Cruz as a European master student.
Hey, I'm a master student from Europe in UCSC, Santa Cruz, and I'm using my weekends to travel and visit the area around here in California. So far it's been so nice, California is beautiful! This time I post my last trip, which was to Palo Alto.
I like to start my one day trips early in the morning, so then I can use the entire day. I started the day taking the 17 Highway bus at 06:45am from Santa Cruz to San Jose Diridon Station, from where I took the Caltrain all the way up to Palo Alto. This took me around 1.5 hours (1 hour bus and 30 mins train, approx). The price for the bus is $14.00 for a day ticket, and $12.50 for the Caltrain (day tickect as well).
Arriving to Palo Alto at around 8:15 am, in this post you can find all the points that I end up visiting. See in the images below my initial itinerary, in which I tried to squish as many points as possible, but ended up being a little too ambitious (I always do the same hahaha, but no problem).
My overly-optimistic original plan 😅
By the way, before showing the itinerary, note that I like to walk a lot. I walked everywhere on this trip, which amounted to around 33k steps counted by my phone. But I'm sure something similar can be done by using public transit/taxi/car. Whatever, here is the itinerary:
1. University Avenue (Downtown Palo Alto)
When arriving, I started walking along University Avenue. It was pretty early, the street was empty, and it was a little foggy, so I was able to peacefully walk around downtown Palo Alto. Later in the day it was very sunny and there was more people.
2. Housing area and HP Garage
From there, I continued following University Avenue all the way up to Woodland Avenue. In some point, I passed from being in downtown Palo Alto to being in a very nice housing area. I enjoyed so much this neighbourhood and just continued walking around. This is maybe because I'm from Europe, but I love American neighbourhoods (here in Santa Cruz as well). There's a lot of space evrywhere and the houses are huge. I turned around in Woodland Avenue, from where I came back to downtown Palo Alto. Instead of coming back by following the same path (University Av), I walked to Eleanor Pardee Park, from where I walked to HP Garage, and back to downtown. The crazy part about HP Garage is that it's just a regular house. Honestly, I was just walking and I didn't see it, so then I had to turn around.
3. Back to Downtown Palo Alto, Lytton Plaza
Being back to downtown, I decide to rest a little bit, so I bought some drinks in the Seven Eleven, and sit in Lytton Plaza to chill a little bit. From here, the next area to visit was Stanford.
4. Stanford Shopping Center
Entering the Stanford area, I passe by the shopping center. I spent aorund 20 minutes here, just walking around the shops. I enjoyed going inside the Tesla showroom, where they had a protype of Optimus humanoid robot. For me as a robotics engineer it was so cool to see this in person! Always seen it in images/videos. Then I went inside the Farmers Market, which was right there, and bought something to eat.
5. Stanford Mausoleum, Cantor Arts Center and Rodin Sculpture Garden
Then I started walking from the shopping center to the main campus area, and found the Mausoleum in the way, so I stopped there and took a view. After that I passe by the Cantor Arts Center and Robin Sculpture Garden. I didn't went inside the center, but enjoyed it aoutside taking a look at the sculptures.
6. Stanford Campus: Main Quad, Memorial Church, & BookStore
Once I was in the campus area, there were a lo of different buildings, each for a specific department at university. I walked around here, taking several rests siting in different places, and just enjoyed the place. The Main Quad was and Memorial Church were super nice to see. I went inside the bookstore, where I took a look at the books they have inside. They also have a lot of Stanford merch here (clothes, cups, etc). I bought a very cool coffee cup for my father, with a bunch of science related emojis and the Stanford letters in the middle. Price: $16.98
* Yep, I'm a coffee lover: black coffee with no sugar/milk, just plain coffee, I love it. Sometimes I do coffee free days (as the day I was doing this visit to Palo Alto), so then I can appreciate even more the coffee the rest of the days. My father is also a coffee lover, and on Christmas we were tasting diferent types of coffee together. This cup it's a cool gift, see the picture!
7. Hoover Tower
I think this stop is pretty iconic for Stanford, or at least I will remember it when thinking about Stanford. It has the option to go inside, but I was ok by taking some pictures and enjoying the view from below.
8. Sports Area
Walking out from the Stanford area and thinking a little about taking the train back to Santa Cruz, I decided to visit the sports area in Stanford. The running track was very nice (I stopped here because I run and I just love looking at tracks). There were multiple baseball fields right next to it, as well as swimming pools, hockey/soccer/football fields, and the big Stanford Stadium. There was a lot of people here and the vibe was extremely positive and energetic! Love this about sports.
9. California Avenue
Finally I walked fromt the sports area all the way down to California Avenue, ready to pick up the train. I walked around the main street for a little bit, which had multiple restaurants and coffee places with terraces.
Finally, I took the Caltrain from California Avenue to SJ Diridon at around 18:00, and then the bus back to Santa Cruz. I was pretty tired in the end, so I fell sleep in both the train and the bus. Arriving to Santa Cruz at around 19:30, I was completely happy with the day.
These are my top 3 experiences from my visit to Palo Alto:
(1) University Avenue
(2) Stanford Main quad and Hoover Tower Area
(3) Walking at the Neighbourhood next to DownTown
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